In July 2011, a successful Mexican musician residing in Germany was abducted by gunmen while on holiday in northern Mexico.
36-year-old Rodolfo Cazares is a Mexican pianist and symphony conductor, leader of the Bremerhaven city orchestra in Germany.

While visiting his parents in northern Mexico, Rodolfo Cazares was sleeping in bed with his wife when masked gunmen burst into the house and shook them awake. Within hours, the gunmen kidnapped 18 members of the same family. The children and the conductor’s wife Ludivine Barbier were released a few days after the crime.

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I have to memorize anything for this weekend’s Mahler 4 concert that has lovely command “Schalltrichter auf!” because I can’t see my music when I raise the oboe that high. But hey … how dare I whine, eh?

Ligeti Sechs Bagatellen played by Carion:

Movements 1 & 2:

Movements 3 & 4:

Movements 5 & 6:

I’ve played this (or at least I’ve attempted it. Who knows how we sounded … it’s been eons and I can’t remember! But Carion woodwind quintet does things by memory. And they move around.

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I received an email about a free concert. I’m sorry to miss it, but I’ll be out of town. Perhaps some of you would be interested, though. Please let me know if you attend … I’d love to hear all about it!

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I received a lovely email from Ryan Walsh, the owner of the company ReedsInCase, and he sent me a sample reed and a Tool Kit Reed Case made by Jen Case. The latter is quite clever, and wonderful way to carry both reeds and tools in a lightweight case. My Landwell won’t fit because it’s handle is a bit too thick, but the Jende barely works, and my Vitry knives fit easily. The reed plays well. I really should purchase a few others from Ryan just to see about the consistency of them, but I was impressed. It’s a rather long reed (over 71mm), and I did a wee bit of carving. It’s not uncommon to need to fine tune a reed, especially when it was made in another part of the country, so I have no problem with that. I may end up clipping the tip a bit, but we’ll see. I’m going to take some time with it to allow it to adjust to California. After all, it’s had a long trip!

Here are some photos … both sides of the case, and below that the reed in the case: